How old and how big

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Riley was 9 years old and topped out at 96#. We lost him to Malignant Histiocytosis... which is common in Berners. The good thing was that he was never an old man... he was a healthy boy who always acted like a pup until the last few weeks of his life.

Bernard is 4 months old today and he weighed in at 52 lbs, which is pretty normal. We live in Germany (I'm Air Force) and I bought him from a professional breeder in a small village near Berlin. I'm lucky that I got him here because his lineage goes back 16 generations to Switzerland! Bernie's breeders are well known here in Europe and they estimate the average life span of their berners to be 11 yrs.

As far as adult weight, it really depends. Some of the females on their farm were smaller (some as small as 85lbs) but some of the males were huge. Bernie's father, Aike (pronounced IKE)was 144 lbs and thought he was a lap dog. I had never really seen a Bernese up close until I bought Bernie and I was taken back by how big an adult male can get.